NOVO-OGARYOVO, Russia, Aug 31 (Reuters) - Russia needs a "leap forward" to rejuvenate its sprawling defence industry, President Vladimir Putin said on Friday, harkening back to the ambitious industrialisation carried out by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin in the runup to World War Two.

"We should carry out the same powerful, all-embracing leap forward in modernisation of the defence industry as the one carried out in the 1930s," Putin told his Security Council, without mentioning Stalin by name.

Stalin, who ruled the Soviet empire with an iron fist for 27 years, is blamed for the death of about six million people but also is praised by many Russians for winning the war and industrialising the country.

Putin made renewed industrialisation a priority during his third term in the Kremlin which started in May amid the largest protests of his 12-year rule. He conceded that the defence industry, once the heart of the Soviet economy, was in tatters.

"Unfortunately, many of our enterprises are technologically stuck in the previous century," Putin said, complaining about poor discipline at plants working on state defence orders.

In the 1930s Soviet leaders transformed a rural country devastated by civil war into an industrial superpower, using terror and executions to impose strict discipline at new plants built across the vast country.

Putin's top defence industry official Dmitry Rogozin posted on his Facebook page a copy of a 1940 letter from Stalin to gun factory managers and accompanied it with a sarcastic warning: "Such methods of improving discipline also exist".

Stalin's letter to the managers said: "I give you two or three days to launch mass production of machinegun cartridges... If production does not start on time, the government will take over control of the plant and shoot all the rascals there."

In Europe, especially in Germany, hoisting a swastika-emblazoned Nazi flag is a crime. For decades after World War II, people have hunted down and sought punishment for Nazi murderers, who were responsible for the deaths of more than 20 million people.

Here's my question: Why are the horrors of Nazism so well-known and widely condemned but not those of socialism and communism? What goes untaught — and possibly is covered up — is that socialist and communist ideas have produced the greatest evil in mankind's history. You say, "Williams, what in the world are you talking about? Socialists, communists and their fellow travelers, such as the Wall Street occupiers supported by our president, care about the little guy in his struggle for a fair shake! They're trying to promote social justice." Let's look at some of the history of socialism and communism.

What's not appreciated is that Nazism is a form of socialism. In fact, the term Nazi stands for the National Socialist German Workers' Party. The unspeakable acts of Adolf Hitler's Nazis pale in comparison with the horrors committed by the communists in the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the People's Republic of China. Between 1917 and 1987, Vladimir Lenin, Josef Stalin and their successors murdered and were otherwise responsible for the deaths of 62 million of their own people. Between 1949 and 1987, China's communists, led by Mao Zedong and his successors, murdered and were otherwise responsible for the deaths of 76 million Chinese. The most authoritative tally of history's most murderous regimes is documented on University of Hawaii Professor Rudolph J. Rummel's website, at http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills, and in his book "Death by Government."

quite frankly the Russians have done well. Our government has been infiltrated by Marxism- Our military is in a wind down, and the entire western world is on a suicidal path to economic ruin. They have done to us what Reagan did to them-In spades. Only they don’t plan to sit back and watch us recover. You can be sure of that. A masterful plan that began with the plans of Antonio Gramsci.

The problem with this leap forward is there are not much ‘rascals’ left to get shot for cartriges they don’t want to make.
I don’t think it will work. Russian population is pretty demoralized by socialism and has only started to reinvent a personal responsibility concept.
No more strongmen needed, if Putin want to rebuild he can’t do it top-down. He has to make conditions to build down-top.

VADER: I’m here to put you back on schedule.
JERJERROD: I assure you, Lord Vader, my men are working as fast as they can.
VADER: Perhaps I can find new ways to motivate them.
JERJERROD: I tell you, this station will be operational as planned.
VADER: The Emperor does not share your optimistic appraisal of the situation.
JERJERROD: But he asks the impossible. I need more men.
VADER: Then perhaps you can tell him when he arrives.
JERJERROD: The Emperor’s coming here?
VADER: That is correct, Commander. And he is most displeased with your apparent lack of progress.
JERJERROD: We shall double our efforts.
VADER: I hope so, Commander, for your sake. The Emperor is not as forgiving as I am.

Putin can rant and posture all he wants. The reality is that between 1914 and 1960, Russia lost its best people to two catastrophic wars with Germany, civil war, famine, widespread abortion and of course the barbarity of Lenin and Stalin who murdered millions of their own people. Russia will never replace those genetic losses. It will never realize the potential it once had. If it were not for its abundant natural resources and arable land, it would be little more than a historic afterthought.

To Allendale, No. 22. Still, Putin is an super-egotistic totalitarian (he’s still KGB in his heart and head). He’s got nukes, the killing FSB/KGB, Spetnaz, and territorial ambitions. He’s always plotting, killing, invading on a small scale, and aiding our enemies in Iran, Venezuela and other parts of Latin America.

A little man is more dangerous than a big man because he wants it (his dreams) more and is willing to do anything to get it.

Georgia’s not all Russia wants back. Putin and the generals are just counting the days until the Eurozone collapses. Who will notice the Baltics and Ukraine getting snaffled amid the chaos? Belarus will annex itself onto Russia. They have no national identity and live under a dictatorship anyway. All of this is an attempt by Putin to restore Russia’s pride. He doesn’t want to get left behind when China makes a move on all those juicy South East Asian territories. Oblamo’s good friend, Vladimir is determined to make the history books as his predecessors did. He’s a tyrant, in love with his own power. It won;t be long before Putin becomes “President For Life” for the good of the Motherland. He and his friends will chow down on caviar while the “rascals” toil on the war machine, eating peas. In fact, Putin and Michelle have a lot in common.

In fact Belarus has a national identity. Ruthenians (a major ethnicity of Belarus) are extremely xenophobic towards foreigners. It was the hottest place for nazy during WWII, they had to kill about a quarter of Belarus population and people had still fought back attacking Germans in the most brutal way at every opportunity.
I don’t think they are dreaming to get back into Russia. It is mostly an aspiration of their dictator who is dreaming foolishly) to be a dictator of united nation of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.

It was the hottest place for nazy during WWII, they had to kill about a quarter of Belarus population and people had still fought back attacking Germans in the most brutal way at every opportunity.

I'll never forget the movie "Idi I Smotri" (Come and See), which depicted one Nazi liquidation of a Belarussian village, and then you learn that the Nazis did the same thing in over 600 such villages throughout Belarus.

31
posted on 09/02/2012 9:59:32 PM PDT
by dfwgator
(I'm voting for Ryan and that other guy.)

It is true, he has started with oxes and carts and finished with nuke submarines and space program.
IMO it wasn’t worth millions lives.
His role in WWII is overestimated. Soviet officers won it despite him.

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